A Hundred Years’ War?

John McCain—who, solely because of the grievous blow to Romney, seems to have been almost as big a winner last night as Huckabee or Obama—flew here yesterday for an early evening “town meeting.” He was accompanied by his own personal Chuck Norris, Joseph I. Lieberman.

The setting was the nearby town of Derry, which looks like a Lionel Train layout, in a building called the Adams Memorial Opera House, which is not an opera house. It’s a cozy little auditorium with a curvy balcony that embraced the packed room like a pair of comforting arms. The stage was reserved for an overflow of supporters; McCain and his improbably blonde wife, Cindy (whom Lieberman Yiddishly referred to as “Sidney”), mounted a platform in the middle of the orchestra. It was political theatre in the round.

I hadn’t seen McCain campaigning up close since New Hampshire in 2000. There’s a lot less electricity now. Eight years on, the candidate is visibly past his prime, and he seemed tired. About every third sentence began with “By the way.” But there are still some sparks, and he took some shots, not by name but unmistakably, at his old nemesis George W. Bush.

McCain was strong on global warming and wasn’t afraid to call it by that name. McCain said he would “restore trust in government”—not a promise one ordinarily feels compelled to make when a President of one’s party has been in power for two terms. Deploring the choice of Vladimir Putin over General David Petraeus as Time’s man of the year, McCain said, “By the way, I looked into [Putin’s] eyes—and I saw three letters: K, G, and B.” McCain decried the ballooning deficits under the Republicans—though the point was rather enfeebled when he called for making the Bush tax cuts permanent, because letting them expire on schedule would “have the effect of a tax increase.” Late in the session, when someone finally asked about immigration, McCain quipped, “This meeting is adjourned.” (He went on to say that he knows people want the borders sealed and that he would seal them, but that immigrants, legal and illegal, “are God’s children.”)

The most interesting exchange came at the very end, and it was about Iraq. The money quote—the bit that could come back to haunt McCain—went like this:

Q: President Bush has talked about our staying in Iraq for fifty years.

McCain: Make it a hundred.

That’s the sound bite. That’s the headline. Now let’s look at the context, which I think is worth considering in full.

McCain pointed to a burly, white-bearded man along one wall and said, “I think Ernest Hemingway is with us tonight.”

When the chuckles subsided, the Hemingway look-alike (who later identified himself to Mother Jones’s David Corn as Dave Tiffany, a “full-time antiwar activist”) asked McCain “what you hope to accomplish in Iraq and how long it’s going to take.”

Here’s my rough transcript of what followed:

McCain: The fact is, it’s a classic counterinsurgency. And you have to get areas under a secure environment, and that secure environment then allows the economic, political, and social process to move forward. In case you missed it, New Year’s Eve, people were out in the streets in Baghdad by the thousands for the first time in years. That’s because we provided them with a safe and secure environment. Is it totally safe? No. I talked earlier about the suicide bombs and the continued threats. But then what happens is American troops withdraw to bases. And we reach an arrangement like they have with South Korea and Japan. We still have troops in Bosnia. The fact is, it’s American casualties that the American people care about. Those casualties are on the way down, rather dramatically. You’ve got to consider the option. If we had withdrawn six months ago, I can look you in the eye and tell you that Al Qaeda would have said, We beat the United States of America. If we’d gone along with Harry Reid and said the war is lost to Al Qaeda, then we would be fighting that battle all over the Middle East. I’m convinced of that and so is General Petraeus…. I can tell you that it’s going to be long and hard and tough. I can tell you that the option of defeat is incredible and horrendous. And I can look you in the eye and tell you that this strategy is succeeding. And what we care about is not American presence. We care about American casualties. And those casualties will be dramatically and continue to be reduced.

Tiffany: I do not believe that one more soldier being killed every day is success. There were three U.S. soldiers killed today. I want to know, How long are we going to be there?

McCain: How long do you want us to be in South Korea? How long do you want us to be in Bosnia?

Tiffany: There’s no fighting going on in South Korea. There’s no fighting in Bosnia. Let’s come back to Iraq.

McCain: I can look you in the eye and tell you that those casualties tragically continue… But they are much less, and they are dramatically reduced and we will eventually eliminate them. And again, the option of setting a date for withdrawal is a date for surrender. And we will then have many more casualties and many more American sacrifices if we withdraw with setting a date for surrender. Now you and I have an open and honest disagreement. But I can tell you that six months ago people like you, who believe like you do, said the surge would never succeed. It is succeeding. And I’ve been there and I’ve seen it with my very own eyes. Do you want to follow up?

Tiffany: President Bush has talked about our staying in Iraq for fifty years.

McCain: Make it a hundred. How long—We’ve been in Japan for 60 years, we’ve been in South Korea for fifty years or so. That’d be fine with me as long as Americans are not being injured or harmed or wounded or killed. That’s fine with me. I hope it would be fine with you if we maintain a presence in a very volatile part of the world where Al Qaeda is training and recruiting and equipping and motivating people every single day.

Tiffany: By the way, I hope you kick Romney’s butt. That man cannot lie straight in bed.

McCain: I knew there was a reason I called on you.

Tiffany: What if U.S. soldiers are being killed at the same rate, one per day, four years from now?

McCain: I can’t tell you what the ratio is. But I can tell you, I understand American public opinion, sir. I understand American public opinion will not sustain a conflict where Americans continue to be sacrificed without showing them that we can succeed.

Tiffany: I hear an open-ended commitment, then.

McCain: I have an open-ended commitment in Asia. I have an open-ended commitment in South Korea. I have an open-ended commitment in Bosnia. I have an open-ended commitment in in Europe…

The rest was drowned out by applause. McCain said, “This kind of dialogue has to take place in America today, and I thank you.”

You have to hand it to McCain. It’s impossible to imagine any of the other Republicans engaging in this kind of extended conversation with a citizen. There was more real debate in this exchange than in any of the so-called real debates.

But what the context shows, I think, is that yanking that sound bite out of context isn’t really all that unfair. McCain wants to stay in Iraq until no more Americans are getting killed, no matter how long it takes and how many Americans get killed achieving that goal—that is, the goal of not getting any more Americans killed. And once that goal is achieved, we’ll stay.

He’ll see your fifty years and raise you fifty. But the cards are blank.

Hendrik Hertzberg is a senior editor and staff writer at The New Yorker. He regularly blogs about politics.